What Influence Did Steve Jobs Have On Web Video? Industry Professionals Speak

In my previous post I made a list of what I thought to be the top video innovations of both Steve Jobs and Apple. However right away one of our readers had reminded me of a few good ones I completely overlooked. So rather than rely on the limits of my own memory, I have enlisted a few people to share their own thoughts on the passing of Steve Jobs and what impact they think he had with online video – the good, and also the not-so-good.

I interviewed MacWorld magazine, ReelSEO's founder, and our fellow technology enthusiasts for their impressions on what Steve Jobs and Apple have meant to online video. Here are their responses:

But his influence extended far beyond iMovie. With the iPhone, anyone could make movies—and eventually, with iMovie for iOS, edit them — and then share them with anyone, all without needing to move to a computer.

Apple's also a great provider of online video, in various formats. The Apple Trailers site made online movie trailers popular. And, of course, the iTunes Store offers thousands of TV shows and movies.”

Larry Kless, President of OnlinVideoPublishing.com and Production Manager of Virtual Events at Kaiser Permanente

"Steve Jobs was a pioneer in bringing digital media to the masses with the launch of the Macintosh, which focused on making things easier to do create, curate and distribute our content. QuickTime in particular, helped grow video on the desktop from a postage stamp size video to a full HD video that can be produced entirely on a mobile device. Apple revolutionized the professional video editing industry with Final Cut Pro, and the home video market with iMovie, iDVD, iPhoto and iTunes. Steve Jobs' innovation and influence in music, film and mobility (iPod, iTunes, iPhone, iPad) will be remembered long into the future.

Starting with the 1984 commercial that introduced that Macintosh computer, Steve Jobs proved that thinking differently about how the computer could be designed – from the user interface, to the easy to use software tools – helped spawn a new generation of independent video producers that could compete with the Hollywood studios and big publishers.”

Eric Schumacher-Rasmussen, Editor at Streaming Media

"My first online video experience with an Apple I remember watching was the trailer for the Star Wars movie, "The Phantom Menace." But watching video on Apple devices didn't really become memorable for me until I first watched video on the iPhone. That was the big "a-ha" moment – that you actually could watch video on a handheld device. Funny thing was, Jobs himself mocked the notion that anyone would want to watch video on an iPod at an event with U2 in 2004.

Jobs was the king of marketing, no doubt, and what he was able to do with the iPod, iPhone, and iPad – take someone else's ideas and make them far better – was genius. Even a flawed product like the Apple TV stands out because it's so damned easy and fun to use.

Jobs and Apple weren't without their missteps, however. The latest Final Cut was obviously a misstep, from an end user's perspective, but clearly Apple was just following the money – and they realized that, for them, the money isn't in professional video editing software.

His influence can't possibly be overstated; he set the standard that everyone else tries to achieve. Nobody else has done it yet, though.”

"There is no question that Steve Jobs has had a profound and lasting impact, not only on consumer electronics, personal computing, mobile, etc.. but he also helped to push digital video innovations forward with groundbreaking products like Quicktime, iTunes, Final Cut & iMovie, etc... etc... Some may even say that mobile video and HTML5 video would not be where they are today if it werent for Steve Jobs and the iPad, and I would have to say that for HTML5 video adoption, that is certainly true.

The iPad really brought HTML5 Video to the mainstream whereas the day before, most people weren't even aware of the term. However, when the iPad was launched, many people felt that Apple's push to HTML5 Video and Steve Job's "Thoughts on Flash" article were disruptive due, in part, to their choice to use the h.264 codec.

Nonetheless, more than a year and a half later, I think it's fair to conclude that in addition to everything else web video that Steve Jobs helped influence in a huge way, mobile video (and perhaps HTML5 Video) would not be where it is today if it weren't for him."

"Steve Jobs and Apple really changed everything for people like me by allowing us to bring in house video production with tools like Final Cut Pro and the MacBook. It enabled anyone to be a video production studio. Add to that the ease-of-use of iMovie and it's development over time where now you can just easily edit a video and send to YouTube or Facebook. The ease-of-use is unparalleled."

(Me), Grant Crowell, Self-Proclaimed Videologist

"Steve Jobs never did a live video chat. Apple never did a YouTube channel. The videos on the Apple website are a walled garden. They don't practice Video SEO or social video marketing in the sense of having online conversations. But they get a pass from me because they built the technology that makes us do all that, and want to do all that. They build machines that make a lot of us not only smile and desire them more and more, but made us not afraid or bored by it all, like most of us certainly were before they came along. They made content creation easy, which is what I think online video content platforms like Google and YouTube learned from. Making technology simple is one of the hardest things to do, and Steve Jobs and Apple were insanely great for doing just that most of the time."

Steve Jobs, in His Own Words

If you're particularly interested in learning more about the life of Steve Jobs and the influence he's had on our world, check out "I, Steve: Steve Jobs in His Own Words," which you can pre-order via PDF and in paperback, and available for release on October 24th. Here's one quote of Jobs' I find particularly appropriate for our time:

"If Apple becomes a place where computers are a commodity item, where the romance is gone, and where people forget that computers are the most incredible invention that man has ever invented, I'll feel I have lost Apple. But if I'm a million miles away, and all those people still feel those things...then I will feel that my genes are still there." - Newsweek, September 29, 1985

What do YOU think?

I'd like to encourage everyone reading this to share their own comments below, either in our "Facebook thoughts" or our "Leave a Reply" section. (Call it the equivalent of filling in the funeral guestbook after a eulogy, and giving us all something to remember the experience by.)

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Grant Crowell is a veteran “social video stylist” working in video marketing since 2005. He has worked in the online marketing industry since 1996 providing digital strategies and development to enterprises and entrepreneurs of all sizes, including Video SEO, YouTube marketing, video UX best practices, performance testing, legal issues and ethics. Contact Grant @ http://grantcrowell.com/.